Lighting, Light Fixtures, Ceiling and Exhaust Fans - Candelabra Bulb Light Output

I don't know if this is a dumb question or not...

Is there a different amount of light output for a 60W candelabra bulb compared to a regular 60W bulb.

I'm looking at a ceiling fan at Lowes that has 4 60W candelabra bulbs. I'm worried that the light output will be equivalent to 4 regular bulbs.

Thanks

with the indscent luminaire or light bulbs between the med base and candelra base bulbs both are very simuair in brightness unless you are comparing to CFL that is diffrent story.

most lightbulbs in bigbox store or hardware store most useally listed the lumines [ brightness ] and the #'s of hours before they will burn out.

Merci, Marc

The wattage on a light bulb specifies how much power is needed to operate the light.

Refer to the luminescence properties to determine how much light is generated.

you should be able to look at a pack of new bulbs and look for the "lumens". That is how much actual light is output for that specific bulb.

Hmmm looks like they don't have it on every package. On the GE website though, it shows a 25 watt candalabra base as having 280 lumens, and a reg bulb as only having 210. Contrary to what I would have thought, but thats whats there.

thanks...
i thought the watts also refered to the light output.

thanks for clarifying!!

60 watts, using a 120 volt ACline draws 1/2 amp (RMS OR 0.72 peak) current. if you buy an unfrosted bulb, like for candelabras, the light output will seem dim, even though it says 60 watts. If it was frosted or phosorized inside, then the light output will seem allot, though basically the same amount is generated, the frosting ... 'whitens' or has a surface for the light 'photons' to land on, ...that's why it looks brighter, the landing area , for the photons , around the bulb (frosting) is closer to the light source .

Maybe there is a "perceived brightness" issue then. I just had to swap a cieling fan that I didn't realize has a candlelabra base. I tried both clear and frosted 60W bulbs and it "appears" to be about half as bright as the original medium based 60W bulb in the old fan. EXACT same globe, too. Wife is complaining now that she can't see well enough to do her crafting. Looks like I'll be switching the fan AGAIN. And no, it's not as simple as switching the light kit... on the new fan it is part of the fan housing and can't be switched.

just buy some candelabra to regular light bulb base adaptors. I bought a ceiling fan at lowes last summer and they were candelabra base. Bought a few adaptors and I could use regular base bulbs which means I could use the compact fluorescent bulbs I had purchased. I get a lot of lighting stuff from http://vosslighting.com
They have a bunch of socket adaptors.
http://www.vosslighting.com/storefrontB2BWEB/browse.do?action=refresh_browse&ctg_id=250

just buy some candelabra to regular light bulb base adaptors

Thanks for the tip! I didn't know they existed. But then again, I've never looked for them either. I'l look next time I'm in the store.

Tom

To the lady who spoke of the adapters Mudslapper I can't thank you enough.You have helped me.I am legally blind and electricians
put up two ceiling fans in my home and now I can keep them.
I'd never see with those candelabra things.Thanks a bunch.

It may or you can just use 4 40 watt.Somehow I don't think those candelabra bulbs are that great.

Candelabra is simply the size of the threads where the bulb twists into the socket. Ceiling fans have always been intended to use 60 Watt Max bulbs, but because people used 100 watt bulbs, it has recently become illegal to manufacturer a ceiling fan with standard base. That is why any new fan will be candelabra base. To answer the original question here, 4 40 Watt Candelabra bulbs will be the same as 4 regular bulbs. I work for a lighting company, so I have been watching and waiting for someone to come up with a Candelabra base CFL.

Yes there is a candera base CFL on market allready.

here one look like this


http://www.earthcasa.com/products/fesl3.jpg



Keep in your mind there is few diffrent verson or style on market allready now.

Merci,Marc

Do they make a ceiling fan frosted candelabra bulb? At Home Depot they have them in clear only.

They make them, that is for sure. I don't know why home depot wouldn't have them, but I know there is such a thing.

I have been watching and waiting for someone to come up with a Candelabra base CFL.

me too....just found one at Lowes on Saturday. STILL doesn't put out enough light to light a room for a single bulb fan light. It's even worse than the incandescent we had in there. Old fan with a single, standard base 60W worked fine.

To our eyes, 60W candlelabra simply does not light the room the same as a standard base does. Not being an electrical engineer, my understanding was that the 60W was a measure of the electric required to light the bulb (and as a result heat output), not the light output. I thought that was the Lumen count. Standard bulbs have higher lumen counts than candlelabras (larger filaments?). So even though the heat output is the same, the LIGHT output is lower.

Or am I crazy?

Guess we're looking to replace the fan with a multi-light light kit if all you can get are candlelabra bases anymore.

Tom

You are exactly right on the lumens. I believe they recommend going up in lumens when going to CFL's, I'm sure partly because the temperature (not heat) of the light emitted is different.

If the CFL was that bad, did you check the lumens on that? How about the actual wattage? If they're claiming much more than quadruple (a 60W equivalent CFL might be 13-15W) without a number of lumens to back it up, let your BS meter start running.

That same home center just started carrying an MR16 CFL that "replaces up to 50W bulbs". However it doesn't list the output in lumens. I didn't pay attention to the actual wattage until I saw how much dimmer it was than the 20w, yes 20w, bulb I was replacing. I think the actual usage was something like 3W, so the package is blatantly misrepresenting it.

Funny to stumble on this exact thread on the first page of the forum which matches the EXACT problem I'm dealing with.

Just purchased and installed a new Hunter fan with 2 candelabra base.

We were a bit worried when purchasing because the light shade is actually pretty dark, but really liked the overall look of the fan.

Now, with 2 60 watt candelabra bulbs in there, it almost seems like my office is lit with candles... :)

Do they make a higher wattage candelabra bulb ? Found a 75 watt halogen w/candelabra base, but not sure if I could use that ??

Only other solution is to replace the glass shade with one that has less "frosting" (anyone got any suggestions as to where to just find a glass shade) ??

They do make higher wattage candlera base bulbs but they are pretty spefic useage.

But as again I will remind many readers please watch the wattage rating on the luminaire when anytime you replace the bulb it don't matter what size base it is.

Do they make a higher wattage candelabra bulb ? Found a 75 watt halogen w/candelabra base, but not sure if I could use that ??

No.,, not in majorty of the ceiling fans unless it is labled for higher wattage.

Merci,Marc

Funny to stumble on this exact thread on the first page of the forum which matches the EXACT problem I'm dealing with.

Just purchased and installed a new Hunter fan with 2 candelabra base.

We were a bit worried when purchasing because the light shade is actually pretty dark, but really liked the overall look of the fan.

Now, with 2 60 watt candelabra bulbs in there, it almost seems like my office is lit with candles... :)

Do they make a higher wattage candelabra bulb ? Found a 75 watt halogen w/candelabra base, but not sure if I could use that ??

Only other solution is to replace the glass shade with one that has less "frosting" (anyone got any suggestions as to where to just find a glass shade) ??

Your situation sounds like a perfect fit for compact fluorescent lighting. You can either use some relatively cheap socket adapters to convert the socket so that it works with standard compact fluorescent bulbs or you can buy CFL's with candelabra bases. Philips and TCP make some torpedo shaped bulbs that aren't too unattactive.

You can find the adapters as well as pretty much any bulb you can think of at Voss Lighting's website. I've bought from them several times and have made them my preferred lighting vendor because they have excellent customer service and they just plain know their stuff. I found out about them from the company I work at. Their website is www.vosslighting.com (http://www.vosslighting.com). I quickly found the adapters at http://www.vosslighting.com/storefrontB2BWEB/browse.do?action=refresh_browse&ctg_id=250. You'll want the WESCANTOMED. If memory serves it is like three or four bucks. I also pulled some candelabra based compact fluorescents up at http://www.vosslighting.com/storefrontB2BWEB/browse.do?action=refresh_browse&ctg_id=551. Read the descriptions. They're pretty detailed and should say if they have a candelabra base or not. Those are all torpedo shaped bulbs. If you don't care about the shape you'll probably be able to find CFL's with a lot more lumens. Lumens equal brightness. The more lumens you get, the more light you get. Maybe try the page at http://www.vosslighting.com/storefrontB2BWEB/browse.do?action=refresh_browse&ctg_id=1117. That lets you browse CFL's by wattage. The more watts you get the more light you get. But with CFL's you generally get four times the light for the same amount of watts. So generally speaking a 15 watt compact will get you a similar amount of light as a 60 watt incandescent.

Good luck. I know a lot of people are having trouble finding lights for their ceiling fans these days. You think this candelabra base causes problems? You should try finding a solution for intermediate bases. Nobody makes a compact fluorescent with an intermediate base. It's becoming very common to find new ceiling fans with intermediate base sockets. It looks like the government forgot about this particular application of lighting when they mandated these new sockets. I tried all of my local Home Depots, Lowes, and Menards as well as the Ace Hardwares. Nobody has the intermediate to medium socket adapters or can even order them in. I couldn't believe it could be that hard to find a stinking socket adapter. Thankfully Voss Lighting sells the FWMINTTOMED at http://www.vosslighting.com/storefrontB2BWEB/itemdetail.do?action=prepare_detail&itm_id=18159. I tried to Google up some other sites to compare prices but I couldn't find anybody else selling them. I think maybe Voss Lighting is manufacturing the socket adapters themselves. I'm not sure what the deal is with intermediate sockets, whether they're more complex or what, but I really got stuck between a rock and a hard place. I pretty much had no reasonable options other than to buy some intermediate adapters or suffer with subpar 60 watt maximum lighting. I sucked it up and bought the adapters and now I can get all the light I want, provided I use compact fluorescents. Whatever happened to the days when a light bulb was just a light bub. Lighting is starting to get as complex as computers. How can one be expected to understand what all of the specs mean? Ughh! Oh well, at least I didn't have to pay Voss Lighting for their time spent helping me understand everything, unlike my local computer tech. He really socked it to me but that's another story for another time.

This is seriously messed up. I didn't realize that we're going to candelabra and intermediate lights only these days. I bought two ceiling fans, and one is using the intermediate, the other candelabra. Neither one is giving me the light that I'm used to, even using 60 watt CF bulbs.

Thanks for the tip on using adapters from Voss. I still haven't seen intermediate CF bulbs at any store.

I've been seeing many more candlelabra base CFL in recent weeks. Took a close look at the packages, and NONE of them list a lumen output. One of the Phillips packages said something like "almost as bright as..."

Not even CLOSE!

I have the same situation as everyone else, stuck looking for adapter sockets. To add to the original candelabra to standard, I am also looking for standard socket extensions. In one case, my outdoor recessed lighting needs about another inch of clearance to use the flourescent floods that I bought. In the other, I am looking for an extension for a three-way lamp, which NOBODY sells, or even makes for that matter. How are we supposed to convert to CFLs for these lights if there is nothing that works/fits in them? If you know of where to find these types of adapters, I'm all ears. Thanks.